Damage due to insect pests is a severe problem in the world and various control methods have been developed so far. In particular, a termite among insect pests causes enormous damage to wooden houses, and therefore an extermination agent and an extermination method of a termite have been intensively researched and developed.
The method for exterminating a termite includes a method of injecting a solution agent such as an organophosphorus agent, a carbamate agent or a pyrethroid agent into an invasion place to kill an insect, or a method of performing smoking by methyl bromide or the like to kill an insect (see, for example, Non-patent Document 1).
As an alternative to a method of spraying an agent, there is a bait method in which a slow-acting insecticidal active ingredient is mixed in a bait and the bait is fed to a termite thereby exterminating the termite (see, for example, Non-patent Document 2).
The conventional extermination technique is basically to throw an agent in large quantity from the outside of a damaged wood to kill an insect. However the technique leads to health damage such as sick house syndrome or to environmental pollution. Moreover, there is a problem that if some of colonies of termites remain, the damage is made to spread to another place. The most serious problem is that the labor cost required for the extermination is too much. The fumigation technique using methyl bromide have been frequently carried out, however, methyl bromide is a causative substance of the ozone layer destruction, and in recent years, a tendency to try to regulate the use of methyl bromide has increased.
As a method for exterminating an ant which organizes a social life in the same manner as in a termite, there is an effective method of mixing a favorite food of an ant into a poison and providing the mixed food as a bait to allow the ant to bring the food to its nest and killing the entire population of the ant. However, because a termite eats the wood itself in which the nest is built, the bait method for allowing the termite to convey an agent from the outside of the nest to the inside of the nest by using a poison bait is not always effective. In particular, it is difficult to eradicate the nest of a termite that belongs to the genus Reticulitermes by the bait method (see, Non-patent Document 2).
As a method for making insect pests to ingest an active ingredient more efficiently than the bait method, “a method for exterminating insect pests by conveyance of a mimetic egg” has been developed in which an egg conveyance instinct that is a basic social behavior of insect pests is utilized (Patent document 1). A main ingredient of egg recognition pheromone is an antimicrobial protein called lysozyme and it has become apparent that lysozyme alone has an egg recognition pheromone activity (see Non-patent Document 3). It is also known that the addition of cellulase (EC3.2.1.4), i.e., endo-1,4-β-glucanase as an auxiliary substance of the termite egg recognition pheromone has the effect of enhancing a conveyance activity of a mimetic egg (see Patent Document 2, Non-patent Document 3).
Heretofore, there has been a method in which cellulase (EC3.2.1.4) is added to lysozyme as an auxiliary substance for stabilizing a conveyance activity of a mimetic egg. However, the conveyance activity is not remarkably improved by cellulase (Patent Document 2, Non-patent Document 3), and the egg conveyance activity which is equal to or more than that of an extract of the true termite egg has not been obtained yet.    Patent Document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-342149    Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Application No. 2007-035030    Non-patent Document 1: “Termites and strategies for control”, The Japan Termite Control Association, 2000, p. 219    Non-patent Document 2: “Activity evaluation of Japanese underground termites using a monitoring station and the control by bait methods”, New developments of monitoring technique of insect ecology in a living zone, 2006, p. 48    Non-patent Document 3: Matsuura, K., Tamura, T. Kobayashi, N., Yashiro, T. Tatsumi, S.: The antibacterial protein lysozyme identified as the termite egg recognition pheromone. PLoS ONE 2(8): e813.    doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000813